Jurassic World Evolution 2 - Review
When Jurassic World Evolution 2 was announced, my first thought was more along the lines of, already, the first one just came out. I then started to wonder what changes could be made and thankfully Frontier kept releasing more details and my hype was building for it. The question was though, would there be enough of a change or improvement from the first, to make this stand out?
Jurassic World Evolution 2 can be broken up into three modes, the story, Chaos Theory and the sandbox and each offers up different spins on the core formula and depending on your preference, you might enjoy one over the other. The story mode is perhaps the most entertaining, as it is a canonical story from the movies, meaning some of the characters appear and task you with helping to establish locations for the now wild dinosaurs to be placed for safety. Each of the parts of the continental USA where you go, provide challenges on their landscape, but also weather and other elements, so while you might be great in Arizona, Pennsylvania is another matter entirely. The story mode is perhaps also the weakest of the game, purely due to its length, there is not a lot here and a few solid hours of gaming can have it all completed, some difficulty with additional objectives would have been a welcome addition.
But on the flip side, the Chaos Theory mode provides a lot more challenge and manages to tell a What If set of stories, nothing as grand as what if Alan Grant was killed by the T-Rex in that iconic scene, but instead, what if you were in charge. The five scenarios cover the five existing movies in the series and have you attempt to see how those stories may have played out differently, for the first movie, the question really becomes, what if Jurassic Park had opened and ran smoothly. The Lost World, the follow up to that, was not about opening a park, at least from the hero perspective, but there was a park being built and while Jurassic Park San Diego was never going to be a success in the movie world, here you get your chance to make it one. Chaos Theory doesn’t throw new mechanics at you, but instead confines you to act within a specific set of rules and regulations, not to suck the fun out, but rather to make you get creative.
The third mode is for those who just want to drop in, make a dinosaur theme park and not care about anything else, there are countless options from giving yourself infinite money, to removing the need to worry about the specifics of each dinosaur. While the mode was fun, I did find myself coming back to the story and chaos theory modes more, because they tested me more and the results, I got back from that, were more satisfying. There is also a dedicated challenge mode, which is basically the chaos theory mode, just very more specific in its scope of challenge, such as time limits and beyond. This will test some people early on, whereas for others - myself included, the challenge will come in trying to get all the stars on a particular challenge.
Of course, all the modes aside the game is mostly still the same across each, you have to build places for the dinosaurs to live, capture or grow some and then once they are safely contained and things are ok, bring folks in to see them, thus making money. That last part is not required in the story mode, but it is elsewhere and guest satisfaction is just as important as the dinosaur satisfaction, because without cash, you can’t breed new critters, heal the ones you have and beyond, making for one fine balancing act. Even the steps you have to take in running your facility, sans people, require constant balancing, you can build an enclosure for your next dinosaur, but that can take cash away from repairing the fences of the ones you have, or constantly research upgrades to get the best buildings and gear you can, but that will run your staff down, leaving you open to be sabotaged.
All of this can be managed, if you take the time to think about your next steps and don’t try to do so much at the start, but when a dinosaur gets aggressive and busts out of its paddock, or a freak storm comes in and damages countless pieces of equipment, your reaction will be crucial. While you are over seeing the grand design of your park, in any mode, you can task teams with the day to day, sending them to monitor the dinosaurs, replenish food and so on, but if you want a faster response, you can take control yourself and drive up to a Carnotaurus yourself. There were times when I would just be bored, looking down at everything, so I would take control of a jeep and just drive around, of course, heading into a paddock with a carnivore is not without risks, but it can be great fun to do it every now and then. In the story mode and some challenge, you can also capture dinosaurs from out in the wild, and while you can automate that a little, it is more fun to take to the skies in a helicopter and track them down yourself.
All of that sounds pretty straight forward I am sure, but there are countless other systems in play, to ensure you have a chance at surviving, should things go wrong and the biggest challenge you will face is with the games control scheme. On Xbox and it is likely the same on PlayStation, I found myself constantly attempting to adjust to the controls that were offered, and it happened a lot. The controls are not bad, they do work, my issue with them is that they were just not intuitive, like I had to stop and think each time I wanted to do something, about whether or not, I was using the right setup. This isn’t a real issue, when things are going smoothly, but when a tornado lands in the middle of your park, starts to rip up fences and destroys buildings, letting scared dinosaurs out, then it becomes an issue.
Something that needs to be discussed are the dinosaurs themselves, of which there are 75 different types and sure you can spend a lot of time in the genetics lab, where you can start to create your own custom dinosaur, I will say though - this does not allow you to create a Velociraptor the side of a Brachiosaurus, it is when they are in paddocks that things can get interesting. Each dinosaur has a classification on the type they are, what they eat, they also then also like all sorts of different elements around them, some like trees, others want rocks and finally, who they get along with. Some of the critters are pretty tame and will get along with most, without too much hassle, others though will attack any other dinosaur you place within their paddock, even if it’s another of their species. Whenever I got word that there was an angry dinosaur, most of the time it was one of them being scared and bashing into a fence, or one of the apex predators taking a bite out of a jeep that got to close, but seeing two trying to establish dominance, that was always surprising.
Taking a look at the games presentation, there are a number of good and a smattering of bad, but let’s focus on the good, first the dinosaurs, they in a word rock. From the small Compsognathus, or Compy as it is affectionally called, all the way up to Mosasaurus, the detail in each is incredible and that is before you start to change their colours in the genetics lab. While some dinosaurs can look similar, like a Triceratops to a Chasmosaurus, they all still have their own striking profiles, so after a while, you will start to understand which is which. The people that you see on the ground, as they go about their tasks, or visit your park are decent, they are nothing like the folks that Frontier have crafted for Planet Coaster, but they do a serviceable job, no the stars are the Dinosaurs and it shows. The locations that you can visit, from the classic locales to the new ones are large and varied enough that while they may look similar, there is enough of a visual difference to keep them separate.
The issue with the visual presentation comes down to two areas, the main characters that you interact with at times and the draw distance. When you are playing in the story mode, with select characters popping in to tell you things, you will hear them and see a picture of them, having Ian Malcom, Henry Wu or Claire Dearing, appear to tell you things is fine. But there are times when they have other characters we know show up, but it is not them, Owen Grady, played by Chris Pratt in the movies is not here and his character picture looks like a bad drawing of him and the same happens when you see Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond. Those are minor, especially if you are playing in the sandbox mode, but the draw distance is an issue that you will see all the time and when you notice it, you won’t stop seeing it. I was playing this on Xbox Series X, a pretty powerful gaming console, so to have a ring define what is detailed and what is not, was so trippy, the level of detail when the camera is close to things is amazing, but the jump between there being detail and not is like turning a light on and off, it is really noticeable.
On the audio side, a similar issue with the characters that are not the characters appears, the actor doing Owen Grady does an ok job, but the person they hired to do the voice of John Hammond is just wrong. I understand that the character is crucial to the Jurassic Park experience, but they could have come up with a reason the character was not going to speak with you, rather than give us a pretty bad impression of a beloved actor. The music, when it plays is soft and tranquil, which is a wonderful addition, because it is usually a mix of classic themes from the movies, which blends in well with the feeling of quite country. When things go wrong the music is more intense, helping ramp up the levels of dread that your park is about to be destroyed by a rampaging dinosaur. My only point of contention here, is that the music is pretty absent more often than it is present, meaning there can be times when it is just the sounds of nature. As with the dinosaur looks, when you get to hear your menagerie making noise, it can be a delight, even if the noises are roars and then scream of terror.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 is not going to be a game for everyone, it is a theme park management game, one that doesn’t offer rides like the others do, though being able to explore in cars, helicopters and gyrospheres is great though. While the story mode is great, it does feel a little forced, like you don’t get a chance to try and see what you can do in those regions. Chaos Theory however is a real blast, being able to play god in the movie sandboxes is great and speaking of sandboxes, the mode will let you design without restriction. For those who want something a little different, I highly suggest you give this one a go, while the controls can be confusing at times, beyond that is a wonderful park management game, but packed with dinosaurs.
The Score
8.5
Review code provided by Frontier
The Pros
+Being able to play What If in the movies is a real treat
+Customising dinosaurs sound boring, but it is a fun addition
The Cons
-The story mode feels rushed, like you are not allowed to look to closely at it
-Some questionable choices with some characters being in the game
